Not fair, Toxic was not just tabaahi

The Yash-starrer has been brutally criticised and several lines have been crossed

Noorulain Sayed

“I write something, I shoot something else, I edit something else, and then the film is out. Then I’m happy. I never stick to the script.” These words by filmmaker Geetu Mohandas during a 2021 interview have come back to haunt her and how! She has co-written Toxic along with its leading man Yash. She has also directed it. The film has been on the chopping block ever since its first ‘Ladies & ladies’ teaser had dropped almost a month ago.

Tabaahi trolled

Then came the song Tabaahi and Bollywood actress Kiara Advani was trolled left right and centre for its bold scenes. Interestingly, the audience, still mesmerised by the KGF hangover, spared Yash most of the criticism. He was their ‘God’ and could do absolutely nothing wrong. However, on August 26 everything changed. Toxic hit almost 7,000 silver screens (in six languages) across India and as expected got a bumper opening. The next day, it crashed at the box office.

As I began to scroll on YouTube in search of its reviews, I came across a pattern. Unanimously, the film was trashed, Yash’s acting chops were discredited (he’s actually very good in the film), its female cast (Nayanthara, Kiara, Huma Qureshi, Rukmini Vasanth, and Tara Sutaria) were heavily criticised. Geetu was renamed “Geetu Nolandas”. A satirical way of saying she is nowhere near the genius of Hollywood filmmaker Christoper Nolan.

Masterpiece or garbage?

The film has divided people. While a few believe it was way ahead of its times and will gain a cult following later on, the majority have declared it as a colossal mess. A slew of YouTubers even have videos titled ‘The ONLY REAL Review Of This GARBAGE!’, ‘Why Toxic FAILED So Badly | Game Over For Yash?’, ‘Yash ka career khatam’, ‘Ab Ramayana ka kya hoga?’ among others. Every day there is a new video about Toxic bashing the film, glorifying memes related to it and predicting Yash’s ‘downfall’.

Toxic isn’t as bad

While people are screaming from the rooftops that the film is the worst ever, believe me, it isn’t. We’ve seen worse. If one can look past its choppy editing, cringe (Hindi) dialogues, and unnecessary action scenes, it showcases the saga of a guilt laden man.

A man, who rises from the dark underbelly of society and as he gets bigger, the choices he makes lead to him losing everyone he loves and his eventual downfall. The film explores themes of guilt and choices beautifully. Especially during the conversations between Raya and Ganga and Raya and Ticket. Sadly, one only gets to see a glimmer of its potential... Of what a masterpiece it could have been. It still doesn’t warrant the nonsense being spewed around it.

Conspiracies galore 

The few who have dared to praise the film or have pointed out both the positives and negatives have been accused of allegedly receiving money from its makers. Many of this lot happened to watch the film twice and now claim to have understood its “deeper meaning”, nuances and twist ending.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of chatter online about how there is a whole ‘conspiracy’ by various film industries who feel ‘threatened’ by Yash’s superstardom to bring down the film and it is they who have paid for negative reviews to spread like wildfire across the internet.

History has repeated itself; just on a gigantic scale

When films like Andaz Apna Apna (1994), No Smoking (2007), Rockstar (2011), Tamasha (2015) and Kabir Singh (2019) initially hit the silver screens, critics back in the day weren’t too kind to them. Most of them (except Kabir Singh) were between average to box-office failures. However today, they have a loyal fan following.

Toxic by no means nears the magic of any of these films. It is a flawed film that could have been magical. However, in comparison, the critique of these earlier films was very miniscule compared to the hate it is receiving. Especially on YouTube and social media. 

Dignity in silence

None of the cast or makers of the film has openly reacted to the verbal slaughterfest going on. However, some YouTubers claim they’ve received legal notices from the movie’s production house for posting “defamatory or false content”. However, the fact remains that at least till the time of publishing this article, not one single member from the film’s team has addressed the public.

The silence is almost calming. It is the complete opposite to the heavy duty, multi-city promotional activities the cast partook in just days and weeks before the film’s release. While constructive criticism for a flawed film is always a welcome norm, it is the hate mongering extremism that feels truly toxic.